Blog

Becoming Acquainted

I haven’t written anything in a long time. And when I say that, I don’t just mean “I haven’t written anything for public consumption” in a long time — I mean, I haven’t written anything at all for a long time.

It’s not that I don’t want to write, and it’s definitely not that I don’t have anything to write about. I think that my problem with writing is that I have this idea that everything I write needs to be perfect. Everything that spews out of my head and onto the page needs to sound exactly the way I want it to; each word I select must be The One Word That Conveys Exactly What I’m Feeling. And then I choose not to write, because I’m putting this undue pressure on myself, and I merely record an imperfect list of bullet points and call it a day. Of course, that’s frustrating because it only leaves me with a bunch of pent-up thoughts and concepts I want to piece together when I have a sudden flash of inspiration.

Earlier this year, I published a blog post called “On Freshman Year, On Adjusting, On a Perpetual Numbness.” When I reread that post today, I was kind of disappointed by how much everything I wrote still applied, particularly the sense of loneliness. I feel like I’ve been very isolated from everything lately — and while sometimes I choose to be alone, as the energy required to socialize can be very draining, there are also times where I just feel lonely. And that loneliness only feeds itself.

I’ve been thinking about how much we don’t communicate with each other. I’ve been thinking of all the times someone has asked me how I am, and I’ll reply “good,” even though that’s the opposite of how I’ve been doing. And I wonder if anything would change if I said “actually, I’ve been feeling pretty shitty” and the other person said “me too.”

But the disconnect I’ve been feeling isn’t just between myself and other people. Strangely, I feel like I’ve been isolated from myself, too. Sometimes I literally don’t know how I’m feeling, don’t know what I want to do and wind up laying in bed, checking on the cats in Neko Atsume. I guess the isolation within myself is also why I haven’t written in a long time — maybe I’m afraid that once I start writing, I won’t be able to stop.